Welcome to the Arizona Mesh Organization Home Page
Here you will find information about our club, meetings, weekly net and how to join via Ham Club Online.
Here you will find information about our club, meetings, weekly net and how to join via Ham Club Online.
Orv Beach, W6BI, has had a love of electronics and radio since his pre-teen years. Orv has always preferred the digital modes of operation, starting first with CW, ham radio’s first digital mode, then proceeding on to RTTY, packet radio, Pactor, Winlink, and now AREDN. W6BI built and maintains a comprehensive AREDN mountain top network in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties in California, but lectures extensively to amateur radio clubs, around the world, on getting on this latest digital mode.
Orv Beach, W6BI, is our guest speaker for the General Meeting Presentation this Monday at 7:00 PM, November 20, 2023. This is a ZOOM ONLY meeting.
Have you heard about Supernodes? Or seen our revised Mesh Node Map?
The latest from AREDN is the new Cloud Mesh concept. There is a Supernode running on the AMO system that provides access to over 1800 nodes world wide - yet isolated from our system so as to not overload our own network. Accessing the Cloud Mesh requires installing the nightly build on your node.
Our Mesh Node Map now points to an AREDN map resource. Check it out - click on the link in the Left Column. Can you find our Supernode?
AMO General Meeting Presentation For October
Slot Antennas for HF, UHF and Microwaves by John Portune W6NBC was presented at the October 16th meeting. Thank you John! It was a fantastic learning event!
2023 Election for 2024 Officers and Board Members
** CLUB ELECTION RESULTS **
President - Walter Dilley KD7DNY
Vice President - Mark Carter KD7PHW
Secretary - Dave Hayes KK7GSS
Treasurer - Tom Cloonan NL7FQ
Board Member - Rod Fritz WB9KMO
Board Member - Tom Goforth WY7TG
Board Member - Bob Howard W8RH
Board Member - Emmett Plant KB3MPN
Board Member - Charles Whitlatch W7VF
(26 ballots cast, 62 ballots sent = 42% voted)
The Arizona Mesh Organization was established in September of 2019 and by December of that same year had been granted 501 (c) (3) non-profit status and became incorporated.
Our history goes back to around 2016, when Steve Estes KB7KWK and Larry Fort AB7C started talking about Broadband Ham-net (BBHN). They started with a few Linksys routers and some waterproof boxes and established a connection at about four miles. Later on John Groseclose WX4LTG who lives in Scottsdale and was about fifteen miles away was able to connect to Steve. Not long after this they heard about the group in Austin Texas and Ubiquiti WIFI equipment and the Amateur Radio Emergency Data Network (AREDN).
Arizona Mesh Organization is a group of Arizona Amateur Radio Operators. Our mission is to build an effective Off-Grid Mesh Network, using it to benefit our communities through public service. Our goals for the network are to assist, as needed, with public service events and emergency communications; Furthering the community's education in the areas of amateur radio and mesh networking and assisting with the advancement of technology, and of course socialization. Arizona Mesh Organization has grown to over 50 club members with over 141 nodes and 310 links. It continues to grow.
We would love to have you join us... it's a lot of fun! Please see the contact and meeting sections below for more information on Joining the Arizona Mesh Organization.
Board Meetings: Are held on the second Monday of each month at 7:00 PM on Zoom. It runs approximately two hours.
General meetings: Are held on the third Monday of each month at the Charles K. Luster Building located at 640 N Mesa Drive, Mesa, AZ (about a half mile North of W University Drive, on the West side of N Mesa Drive). The doors open at 6:30 PM. The meetings start at 7:00 PM and are usually over by 9:00 PM. The meeting is concurrently streamed on Zoom.
AMO Weekly Nets: Are held on the other Mondays at 7:00 PM on Zoom.
If you need the Zoom link, please contact the AMO Club President at least 2 hours prior to the meeting: president@arizonamesh.org.
OFFICERS:
President - Gary Hinton AC7RRod Fritz WB9KMO
Charles Whitlatch W7VF
Bob Howard W8RH
Tom Cloonan NL7FQ
Michael Bailey KI7LXY
Hamshack Hotline (HH) is a FREE dedicated VOIP telecom service for the Ham Radio community. Check them out and join Hamshack Hotline VOIP Phone System and view the System Map. Chat with other Hams all around the world. Click on the links below for more information.
Just a quick Tech Committee Report: On Saturday February 13th and 20th, part of the AMO / SuperARC Tech committees went out to the Superstition ARC Usery and Stone Castle Repeater sites to check out multiple nodes. In attendance were, Bill N9EIV, Brent W7FK, Brian W7JET, Gary AC7R, Jeff N7CCW, Michael KI7LXY and Steve KB7KWK.
On Usery, some minor changes were done including the addition of a Mikrotik QRT5 pointed to the southwest as a test node to see if it would help the people down in Maricopa. They also checked what turned out to be a very dead 2.4 gig bullet titanium. It should be returning to the land of the living soon after the new unit arrives and can be installed up on Usery. The AC7R nodes to White Tanks were checked out and readjusted. They still are fading in and out, so it looks like another trip to White Tanks may be needed. So, look for those connections to come back as strong as they had been in the near future.
Down at the Stone Castle Repeater site on February 13th, they installed three Mikrotik Nodes pointing them southeast, southwest and south. Then on February 20th, the three recently installed nodes were moved higher on the tower. The two 2.4 gig 120-degree sectors were realigned to the southeast and southwest. The 5.8 gig dish was realigned to the south and the distance settings on all three were reduced This should help out the connections. The details can be seen by clicking on those nodes on the map.
A big thanks goes out to the members from the AMO and SuperARC Tech committees for working together on this project. They would also like to thank Bill N9EIV for bringing his boom truck out to the Stone Castle which made all of the work a whole lot easier.
(Last updated 03-01-2021)
Are you interested in learning more about the AMO / SuperARC Mesh Information Network and what we are doing? Then Check out the information below:
The Arizona Mesh Organization has moved our mail list over to Google Groups. We also combined our effort with the Superstition ARC. This allows you to control how you receive your email. Not a member? The process to Subscribe or Unsubscribe is very easy for you to control.
Your Pay Pal Receipt is your record for your Donations...
Download and Check out the AMO Club Flyer. Last revised December 6th, 2020
Note, this flyer is out-of-date regarding club meeting dates. Please see above for current information.
Download Arizona Mesh Organization Flyer
This is partly why we should all be getting our FEMA CERTS. It will certainly help in the future: Former FEMA Administrator Advocates Using Mesh Networks for Disasters
Former Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) Administrator Craig Fugate, KK4INZ, encouraged the use of mesh networking to help empower volunteers during natural disasters, such as hurricanes and wildfires. During a keynote at the International Wireless Communications Expo's (IWCE) Virtual Event, Fugate noted "By building these types of networks, you can put people back into communication and put people to work where they're needed." He encouraged public safety agencies to work with local amateur radio groups and commercial providers to create solutions that can build these mesh networks when the main network goes down. [See the August 2020 issue of the ARES Letter for a story on how mesh networking is gaining traction in Ohio - Ed.] .-- FEMA Disaster Emergency Communications News Clippings and Topics of Interest Vol. 9 Issue 16, August 16-31, 2020.
For those of you that are interested in participating in the various public service events or in emergency situations, most groups like the MCECG (Maricopa Emergency Communications Group) & the Red Cross, require you to have certain FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) certifications. Everyone who is interested in taking these classes will need to first establish their own FEMASID number, which you can get from the link below:
